Berg

Berg

Berg, Alban, 1885-1935, Austrian composer. In his youth he taught himself music but in 1904 he became the pupil and close friend of Arnold Schoenberg. Later Berg himself taught privately in Vienna. He adopted atonality and later the twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg (see serial music), although he tempered it with the lyric and dramatic qualities of the Viennese romantic tradition. His masterpiece, the opera Wozzeck (based on the play Woyzeck by Georg Büchner; Berlin, 1925), written in a free atonal style (see atonality) with occasional intrusions of tonality, aroused strenuous protest, but it has since been acclaimed as a major work of the 20th-century musical stage. His Chamber Concerto (1927) marked a turn to twelve-tone composition, but it is in his Lyric Suite (1927) for string quartet and his opera Lulu (based on two plays by Wedekind; Zürich, 1937) that the mature twelve-tone style is manifested with great technical intricacy yet richly expressionistic. Though Lulu was left incomplete in its orchestration, it was completed by Friedrich Cerha. His Violin Concerto (Barcelona, 1936), his last completed work, written as an elegy on the death of Alma Mahler's 18-year old daughter, combines eloquent lyricism with the rigors the twelve-tone technique and of the classical form. He also wrote songs and chamber music.

Berg, Patty (Patricia Jane Berg), 1918-2006, American golfer, b. Minneapolis, Minn. She was a leading amateur during the 1930s, winning 29 titles before turning professional in 1940. After serving in the Marines during World War II, she returned to golf and won the first U.S. Women's Open in 1946. In 1948 she was one of the founders of the Ladies' Professional Golf Association (LPGA) and served (1949-52) as its first president. Berg won more than 80 amateur and professional tournaments, including 15 major titles, the most of any woman golfer. The LPGA's top money winner in 1954, 1955, and 1957, she recorded the tour's lowest scoring average in 1953, 1955, and 1956. Berg was a charter inductee (1951) of the LPGA Hall of Fame and is also a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Berg, Paul, 1926-, American biologist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Western Reserve Univ., 1952. A professor at Washington Univ. at St. Louis and Stanford Univ., he shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics (with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger) for his work with recombinant DNA. Berg developed techniques for attaching selected parts of DNA molecules to bacterial DNA, enabling the synthesis of such proteins as insulin and interferon.

Berg, former duchy, W Germany, along the right bank of the Rhine River between the Ruhr and Sieg rivers. Düsseldorf was its chief city. A county in the 12th cent., Berg passed (1348) to the dukes of Jülich and in 1380 was made a duchy. In 1423 the duchies of Berg and Jülich were united. On the extinction (1511) of the Berg-Jülich line, Berg passed to Duke John III of Cleves (see Cleves, duchy of), whose line died out in 1609, setting off a virulent struggle over succession that contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War (1618-48). In 1614, Berg was awarded to the Palatinate-Neuburg branch of the Bavarian house of Wittelsbach; the award was confirmed in the Treaty of Cleves (1666). Ceded to France in 1806, Berg was raised to a grand duchy by Napoleon I in favor of Joachim Murat. The Congress of Vienna assigned (1815) the duchy to Prussia.

(born June 30, 1926, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. biochemist. He received his Ph.D. from Western Reserve University. While studying the actions of isolated genes, he devised methods for splitting DNA molecules at selected sites and attaching the resulting segments to the DNA of a virus or plasmid, which could then enter bacterial or animal cells. The foreign DNA was incorporated into the host and caused the synthesis of proteins not ordinarily found there. One of the earliest practical results of this research was the development of a strain of bacteria that contained the gene for producing insulin. In 1980 Berg shared a Nobel Prize with Walter Gilbert (b. 1932) and Frederick Sanger.

(born June 30, 1926, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. biochemist. He received his Ph.D. from Western Reserve University. While studying the actions of isolated genes, he devised methods for splitting DNA molecules at selected sites and attaching the resulting segments to the DNA of a virus or plasmid, which could then enter bacterial or animal cells. The foreign DNA was incorporated into the host and caused the synthesis of proteins not ordinarily found there. One of the earliest practical results of this research was the development of a strain of bacteria that contained the gene for producing insulin. In 1980 Berg shared a Nobel Prize with Walter Gilbert (b. 1932) and Frederick Sanger.

(born Feb. 9, 1885, Vienna, Austria-Hungary—died Dec. 24, 1935, Vienna, Austria) Austrian composer. He was largely self-taught musically until he met Arnold Schoenberg at age 19. This would prove to be the decisive event in his life, and Schoenberg would remain his teacher for eight years. Under his influence, Berg's early late-Romantic tonal works gave way to increasing atonality and finally (1925) to 12-tone composition. His Expressionist opera Wozzeck (1922) would become the most universally acclaimed post-Romantic opera. His second opera, Lulu, on which he worked for six years, remained unfinished at his death. Berg's other works include two string quartets, including the Lyric Suite (1926); Three Pieces for Orchestra (1915); and a violin concerto (1935).

Former duchy, Holy Roman Empire. Located on the Rhine River, the area now lies in the districts of Düsseldorf and Cologne, Germany. In the 11th century the counts of Berg acquired Westphalian lands east of Cologne; these were incorporated into a duchy in 1380. Berg became a leading iron and textile manufacturing centre in the 17th–18th centuries. In 1806 Napoleon made it a grand duchy in his Confederation of the Rhine. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, it became part of Prussia.

(born Feb. 9, 1885, Vienna, Austria-Hungary—died Dec. 24, 1935, Vienna, Austria) Austrian composer. He was largely self-taught musically until he met Arnold Schoenberg at age 19. This would prove to be the decisive event in his life, and Schoenberg would remain his teacher for eight years. Under his influence, Berg's early late-Romantic tonal works gave way to increasing atonality and finally (1925) to 12-tone composition. His Expressionist opera Wozzeck (1922) would become the most universally acclaimed post-Romantic opera. His second opera, Lulu, on which he worked for six years, remained unfinished at his death. Berg's other works include two string quartets, including the Lyric Suite (1926); Three Pieces for Orchestra (1915); and a violin concerto (1935).